Blog

So, today was our first full day in Salzburg.  (I say “our” because there is another von Karajan conducting fellow – Christopher Chen.)  We were basically told to talk to the Kunstlerishe Betriebsburo.  (Sp?) and arrange our rehearsal schedules with them.  Of course, we called, and nobody there seemed to know what we were supposed to be doing.  (And Theilemann only allows closed rehearsals, so ‘so much for Monday.’)  So, that was our morning to the Salzburg festival.  Then, we trekked back to the Schloss Arenberg.  Now, the Schloss Arenberg is in a literal translation – Castle Arenberg.  But really, I think it’s more a Palais.  It’s also where we live!  They basically renovated the Palais into a housing/apartment complex.  As we were walking back to the Schloss Arenberg, we notice a number of cars keep pulling up, there is security out front, and it looks a bit like bedlam!  We get there to find out that it is the rededication ceremony for the Schloss!  So suddenly we are mingling with people from board members of the New York Philharmonic to the Federal Chancelor of something or another in Austria.  It was a heck of a party.  By this time, I was wiped out.  (Hey, I know… I’m getting old.)  In the evening, I was invited out to dinner by a friend of Mark Mandarano’s.  (Mark was in the same National Conducting Institute class with me in May.)  I ended up going to dinner in a restaurant in the contemporary art museum at the top of a mountain overlooking Salzburg!  Talk about spectacular!